Lindsey Graham Says He Will Meet With Donald Trump, Discuss Future Of GOP
Sen. Lindsey Graham revealed Friday evening that he will soon meet with former President Donald Trump to discuss the future of the Republican Party.
Per Politico, speaking to a group of reporters, Graham said that he will try to encourage Trump to work with Republicans in order to help them win back the U.S. Congress in the 2022 midterm elections.
Graham promised to do his best to convince the former commander-in-chief that he and the Republican Party need each other, because “you can’t keep the Trump movement going without the GOP united.”
“If we come back in 2022, then, it’s an affirmation of your policies. But if we lose again in 2022, the narrative is going to continue that not only you lost the White House, but the Republican Party is in a bad spot.”
Trump has vowed to take revenge against Republicans who wronged him, promising to support primary challengers against anyone who didn’t fully endorse his theories about widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
Furthermore, he is purportedly thinking about launching a comeback presidential bid in 2024, which could exacerbate the divisions on the right.
According to Graham, Trump will have to “work with everybody,” including the lawmakers he personally dislikes, if he wants to see the Republican Party succeed in two years.
“If it’s about revenge and going after people you don’t like, we’re going to have a problem. If this is about putting your best team on the field, we’ve got a decent chance at coming back,” he said.
Graham made the comments amid Trump’s second impeachment trial. The former president is all but certain to be acquitted of all charges since most Republican lawmakers have deemed the process unconstitutional and signaled they won’t vote to convict him.
The House of Representatives impeached Trump last month, alleging that he incited a violent insurrection by telling his supporters to stop the certification of Electoral College votes in the 2020 election.
A group of them clashed with security forces at the U.S. Capitol and managed to violently invade the building, vandalizing the chambers in the process.
As Politico noted, this deepened divisions within the Republican Party, with dozens of lawmakers condemning Trump’s rhetoric and behavior.
Graham recently said that Trump bears responsibility for the storming of the Capitol, but argued that history, and not Congress, should judge his actions in the days leading up to the riots.
Like most Republicans, Graham has repeatedly dismissed Democrats’ push to convict the former president as unconstitutional.
